Community Change, Children’s Funding Project Release New Reports on Child Care Cost Modeling
New Reports Outline Tactics and Strategies for Providers to Organize for Greater Investments in Child Care
Washington, DC – Today, Community Change in partnership with Children’s Funding Project, released two new resources to equip child care providers with strategies necessary to advocate for greater child care investments in communities across the country. The reports, titled How to Initiate a Cost Model in Your Community and How to Shape a Cost Model Happening in Your Community, zero in on cost models — a vehicle to measure the true cost of equitably implementing, maintaining, or expanding a program or service — and how they can be leveraged by providers and advocates to push for additional investments to address burdens and gaps in child care systems across the country.
The reports outline how cost models can help communities build sustainable and equitable child care. They also provide a road map for advocates to initiate a cost model in their communities or influence cost model processes that are already underway. While developing a cost model alone will not solve the problem of underfunding, the report notes that high-quality cost models are essential to provide officials with accurate, comprehensive data to demonstrate what communities need to deliver quality child care that is accessible, affordable, and rooted in fair compensation for providers.
The report also explains how child care and early education providers can organize around cost modeling in their communities to further push for investments in child care resources.
“As we strive to ensure that child care is seen as a public good, this tool will help providers take matters into their own hands and make the case for deeper investments in this dramatically underfunded system,” said Elizabeth Gaines, founder and CEO of Children’s Funding Project.
“Too often the real cost of child care, and the burdens that are placed on providers, are grossly underestimated due to outdated budgeting practices that don’t reflect a country that values child care as some of the most important work,” said Dorian Warren, Co-President of Community Change. “If we want to properly invest in the child care system in America, we must factor in costs that have been historically overlooked by state and local officials when budgeting for child care resources. High-quality cost models will help us do just that.”
“Our report will arm advocates and providers with the tools they need to course correct so that ultimately, communities can properly fund the child care sector in a way that meets the desperate needs of families across the country and fairly compensates providers for the essential work they do,” added Warren.
The report, which will be distributed to advocates and child care providers across the country, comes after advocates in New Mexico rallied voters to approve a constitutional amendment that will guarantee funding for child care across the state. The amendment was approved with more than 70% of the vote earlier this month. Organizers believe that the New Mexico effort can be a model for both federal and state action in 2024 and beyond.
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